[WillowTheWhisp]

Originally Posted by yerself

Have a read at this WillowTheWhisp 'Kafir is what the Koran and Islam call the unbelievers. Kafir is the worst word in the human language.'
For more click this link: Political Islam

'Kafir is the worst word in the human language' doesn't actually make sense. There is no such thing as 'the human language' - there are thousands of human languages. To a devout Muslim the word 'kafir' (or however you want to spell it) is possibly the worst word because to them to be an unbeliever is the worst possible thing. You can't blame the word. It's like saying the Spanish word for 'black' is offensive because in English the word 'negro' is deemed to be offensive wheras the word 'black' isn't. But 'negro' is the Spanish word for 'black'. What are the millions of Spanish speaking people supposed to do if they want to say 'black'? If a word is used as an insult it's an insult. If a word is used in it's intended form to describe something with no malice intended then it is not an insult. It is what people intend when they say it that matters. You can't blame the word. The point I was making was that Muslims have not taken the word from South Africa and adopted it to use to insult non-Muslims. They already had the word.

When I was at school there was a girl who would call others a 'pencil case'. Now is a pencil case an offensive item or merely somewhere to store your writing equipment? Yet when she used the words the intention was to insult others. Many of us use a dipstick to check the level of oil in our car. Yet the word is used to describe someone in a derogatory manner. Is an actual dipstick an offensive item? If people choose to use the word 'kafir' as an insult that is their use of the word. When I was in Ireland I often heard the term 'English' used as an insult.

Interesting that your link is to 'political Islam' - there are plenty of Muslims who are not political and are just simply living their lives like we are. I could probably find Christian references to chopping off heads and arms of non-believers. How about 'not suffering a witch to live'? Look at what happened in Salem, Massachusets.